Mourning the Morning
by Shalott45
Summary: After the war, Harry falls into depression like most of the survivors. But he doesn't get better when the others do; will he ever leave the hopelessness behind? HPDM mostly preslash. Side pairing HGRW. Rated for suicide attempt. Warning for triggering thoughts.


**Disclaimer: **All familiar characters are owned by J.K Rowling and associates. No copyright infringement is intended. I write for pleasure, not money.

**Mourning the Morning**

The eighth year started as any other. Harry got on the train and sat in a compartment with Ron and Hermione. There was joking and his friends laughed as though last year had never happened. But last year had happened. And Harry knew with a sorrowful certainty that nothing would ever be the same again, no matter how much it looked the same. Students rode in the carriages to the school as usual, but too many of them could see the thestrals now. The Sorting Ceremony was gone through and the following feast looked like it had every year, but there were too many empty seats and mourning looks for Harry to delude himself that everything was fine. He couldn't help but wish that he hadn't returned to Hogwarts again. Everything that had been Hogwarts - the smiling Dumbledore, the cranky Snape, the awed pupils, escaping the Dursleys, feeling at home, memories and adventures - had all been twisted into pictures of the final battle. Everytime Harry looked at the tables in The Great Hall he saw dead bodies lined up, everytime Harry turned a corner he saw broken walls and people fighting for their lives. There was no joy left in Hogwarts, everybody knew it and yet they pretended everything was the same, maybe for their own sakes, maybe for the sake of the first years who hadn't been a part of the war in the same way. But too much had been lost. Too many had been lost. The smiles were strained and tainted. Even the ghosts were absent and the picture frames were suspiciously empty. Harry wanted to scream and yell and hit something. People studied as they should and they talked lightly and acted as if everything was the way it was supposed to be. But it never would be again. It couldn't be.

It didn't take long for the students to fall into routines and soon a lot of them were showing genuine happiness once again. Ron and Hermione spent more and more time alone, kissing and flirting and sometimes forgetting that Ron had lost a brother. Harry couldn't forget. He didn't understand why he couldn't just move on like everyone else, but his thoughts were stuck on death and suffering and his nightmares were of Fiendfyre and green light. He felt more and more lonely as the term dragged on and even though it was only his second week, it was like nobody cared about him anymore. He reckoned he should have been happy; the press was too preoccupied with reporting on the rebuilding of society to write false stories about him, and his fans seemed to have gotten better things to do than thank him for saving them or admiring him. But that was the problem. It was like no one wanted to acknowledge the sacrifices he had made for the wizarding world and despite the fact that he had never liked the attention, Harry felt forgotten when no one even looked at him. The teachers didn't take any notice of him anymore as he never raised his hand in class, and even The Fat Lady had started opening to him without demanding a password. At night, when Harry awoke sweaty and shaking, he exited the common room to roam the corridors and the teachers who caught him didn't bother giving him detention, they simply gave him strained smiles and patted him on the shoulder. No need to tell the Saviour to follow the rules, apparently.

Once, when Harry was late for class, he ran right into Malfoy who dropped his books and fell on his butt. When Harry helped him up and apologised, he merely gave him a defeated glance and walked past him into the classroom. No fight. No insults. No nothing, really. And it stung more than Ron and Hermione's lack of attention. Even his rival couldn't say anything to him anymore. Harry started fearing that something was wrong with him. Maybe he had some disease that made people avoid him? If he had a sickness of some sort, he hoped it was deadly, then he wouldn't have to live this way much longer. Then there would be no more fearing he had lost his voice and talking to his reflection when he was alone. And no more endless wandering the castle at ungodly hours simply because the right to sleep forfeited him.

He wasn't sick of course. Not physically. But he could feel an invisible illness eating him up from inside. It turned everything he had known into ashes and taunted him for not holding on better. It made him more isolated than he had ever been and there was no one to talk to because no one would listen. Besides, Harry didn't want to inconvenience anyone by making them worry. There was enough pain without him adding to it. So he shut up completely and stopped trying to socialise and stopped doing his homework. No one noticed. When he stopped getting letters, he decided that what he had feared all along was real. There really wasn't anyone who cared.

McGonagall called Harry to her office one morning to have a talk about the future. She said he needed to decide what he wanted to do so he could take the right NEWTs and Harry just looked at her, said he didn't care about the future anymore and left when she said that he _had_ to care, he must want to do something. There was nothing Harry wanted to do. What was the point anyway? People would come and go and eventually they would all die and there was no point in pretending otherwise. No point in earning money when he already had lots. No point in making a difference when he had already made a difference. So Harry stopped showing up for class. He spent his days in bed and when Madam Pomfrey showed up, he told her he felt sick. She looked him over and saw that he was exhausted and gave him permission to stay bedridden for at least a week. At the end of that week, Ron approached him in his bed and asked why he hadn't been in class that day. Great. His best friend hadn't even realised he was gone. There truly was no place left in the world for Harry Potter.

As the weeks went by and Harry still lay in bed doing nothing all day and wandering at night, he quit showing up for meals. It wasn't a conscious decision, he simply didn't have the energy to walk into The Great Hall and eat amongst familiar faces that took no notice of him, so he didn't eat at all. Winky the house elf, bless her heart, was the only one to realise how bad Harry's eating habits (or lack thereof) had gotten and she started showing up with meals for him that he only nibbled at. What was the point of eating anyway? Food had lost its taste. Winky tried to force Harry to eat and she cried when he wouldn't. She fluffed his pillow and ran her wrinkled hands through his hair and said that _Master Harry_ needed to eat something or he would turn into nothing. Harry didn't think that sounded like the worst thing in the world.

Ginny turned up in the boys' dormitories one day to talk to Harry. On and on she went about things that had happened in and inbetween classes and how Hagrid had asked for him and how she missed him and could they get back together? The only response she got was Harry turning the other way and pretending to fall asleep. All Harry's friends became former friends. Some of them remained oblivious to his misery and others just didn't know what to do with him. They didn't know how to help him and, when asked, he didn't know either and soon they seemed to have given up on him completely. When Harry tried to get out of bed one night, he couldn't. He had become too weak to stand up on his own and Winky found him passed out on the floor next to his bed. After that, Winky forced food down his throat, made him chew and swallow and tried to restore his health. She did manage to restore his bodily health after a while, at least as much as possible considering he had barely slept since the beginning of the year. Madam Pomfrey took away Harry's permission to stay in bed by then, she said it didn't appear to help him, and he was forced to come to the lessons again. The teachers rambled on about things Harry didn't hear, and walking through the crowds Harry felt like a mindless zombie. This time when he bumped into Malfoy, he was the one who fell on his butt and Malfoy the one to help him up. The way Malfoy glanced at him was unlike any look Harry had gotten since Voldemort died. Malfoy looked worried, though it was beyond Harry why Malfoy should worry about him. He figured he must have misread the look in his eyes.

Christmas came faster than he'd thought it would. The entire castle grounds became covered in snow and the lake was frozen. The Gryffindor Common Room was used more than before and Harry avoided it at all cost. He started spending all his time in unused classrooms so he wouldn't have to face the other Gryffindors and see newborn hope on their faces. It was enough to see the promises of a better future they all had in their eyes during meals. It pained him to know that such a future didn't involve him. And it pained him to know that they didn't think of him at all. Even the Christmas presents and cards he got were too superficial to be meant for a beloved person. Molly hadn't made him as nice a sweater as the ones his friends had gotten and when he saw Ginny, Ron and Hermione in their knitted, pretty sweaters he felt a pang of loss like none other. _Forgotten_ screamed his mind. The only personal gift he got was a watch that had apparently belonged to his father once. There was no name on the note that accompanied it.

Looking at himself in the mirror one night, Harry decided he'd had enough. He marched determinedly outside and stood by the lake for hours. It seemed almost poetic that he should die as the last snow melted. When the sun started rising, Harry jumped into the lake and swam out into the middle. He tried to simply let himself sink but had to tire himself out in order to do so without his legs kicking to keep him up. The surface of the water became more and more distant and Harry's body screamed for oxygen but when he tried to breathe, his lungs filled with water. It was painful. It was real. It was a sign that he soon would never use his lungs again and he wasn't afraid. This was what he wanted - to end it all. But just as his sight started becoming blurred, strong hands came around his waist and dragged him to the shore. He coughed and spat out lots of water and the person held him up with one arm and lightly hit his back with the other to help him clear his lungs. Breathing again and with a sore throat, Harry turned to look at the person who had rescued him. It was Malfoy. Malfoy told him he was an idiot and what the hell was he thinking? He couldn't just go around trying to kill himself, there were people who cared about him. Harry wondered who and Malfoy said that he did. _Yeah, right_, thought Harry angrily. Malfoy should have let him die. At least he wouldn't have to lie to Harry then.

After the incident where Harry almost succeeded in killing himself, Malfoy starting following him around everwhere. Perhaps, if Harry hadn't been so lonely to start with, he would have been angry or annoyed, but as it was he barely showed any sign of caring. He could see the concerned looks that Malfoy directed at him and he started to believe that Malfoy did care, but even so, he couldn't see any point of living. When it was night Malfoy followed him around the castle, and during the days Malfoy sat next to him in classes and even sat at the Gryffindor table during meals, earning himself some nasty glares from Gryffindors and Slytherins alike. He told Harry about a lot of different things that Harry didn't care about, but when he talked about how lost he himself felt, he touched the heart Harry thought he had lost a long time ago. Malfoy said that there were no workplaces that would employ anyone who had been on the Dark side during the war. He complained about his father and the expectations he still had to live up to and he entrusted Harry with the knowledge of his inner thoughts. Harry learnt a lot about Malfoy as the days rolled on. Among other things, he found out that Malfoy still had nightmares about the Fiendfyre too, that Malfoy missed his old wand and that Malfoy admired Harry for going through so much over the years and not breaking until now. Malfoy even told him once that he had thought of suicide too, but when he saw Harry in the lake he had been so afraid of losing the one constant in his life that he had not only changed his mind but also realised that he wanted Harry to stop hurting. Only two days went by before Harry gave Malfoy back his old wand and Malfoy became overjoyed and hugged Harry for three full minutes before remembering that they were in the middle of The Great Hall and awkwardly disentangling himself whilst blushing violently.

Somehow, with Malfoy's help, things started to get better. At first it was small things like food getting back its taste and brief flashes of feeling like everything would be okay, but soon Harry was bursting the bubble he had lived in and started to see things again. Every colour was much more vibrant than it had been in months and the grounds and the castle weren't quite as horrible to walk through. The nightmares became less and less frequent and Harry found that he could sleep again. Malfoy started sneaking him into the Slytherin Common Room so they could stay in each other's company and he made sure that Harry got up in time in the morning. When he realised that Harry had yet to gain back some routines such as showering regularly, he commanded him to shower every day and even washed his hair on the days he felt too bad to do anything at all. Slowly, those days disappeared and Harry found that he could even pay attention in class again. He also found that Ron and Hermione had never really given up on him, only been unable to reach him in the right way and they started talking to him more. They apologised for not knowing what to do and showed him through gestures that they did still care about him.

Exams came and Harry managed to pass them all. He still had no idea what to do with his life but at least he knew that there were others who didn't either and it didn't feel so bad not to know. Just being okay with having a future was a huge step and he wished that he could share it with Malfoy, who had kept away since Ron and Hermione started hanging out with him again. It wasn't the same without Malfoy. Ron and Hermione didn't talk about their deepest feelings and they hadn't been on the verge of suicide. Hell, they didn't even know he had tried to take his life. The subject felt too personal and painful to bring up. They weren't the ones who had been there during the hardest time in his life even though he'd have thought they would be. Still, he was grateful to have them back and to start getting letters from George again. One of the last days of school, he went to the kitchens to thank Winky for taking care of him when he couldn't bring himself to eat. She cried and sniffled and said she was so happy that _Master Harry_ was well. Life moved on and before he knew it, he was sitting on the train on his way to King's Cross. This time, he was laughing and joking too and when they finally reached the station and parted, he knew that whatever happened from then on could only be good.

The first weeks of the summer Harry spent simply doing whatever he came up with. He went to Diagon Alley and bought a new broom, he tried to improve his potions skills with disastrous but hilarious results and he visited museums he had never been to. But through it all, something was missing and it took him a while to figure out what it was. The missing thing was someone who talked to him the few nights he did have nightmares and someone who didn't care if he was quiet, who would keep him company anyway. He missed having someone around who knew what he had been through and who had been there with him; for him. He missed Malfoy. So he owled him and asked him to meet at The Leaky Cauldron and they sat down together and talked and Harry told him how much better he was doing. Malfoy looked both happy for him and sad at the same time, but when Harry thanked him for being there when no one else was, his eyes got some spark back. He accompanied Harry home and when he was about to leave, Harry asked if he would maybe stay a little longer, so he did. Finally, Harry knew exactly what he wanted to do at that moment and he took Malfoy's hand and asked if he could kiss him.

"All you had to do was ask." Was the answer he got and they kissed and Harry was so happy that he was alive to experience it. Maybe they would have a future together, maybe not. But Harry was betting that whatever happened would be absolutely wonderful.


End file.
